Edward Weston
I decided to research Weston because I am familiar with his work as I have previously created work that was inspired by his. I wanted to know more about Weston and his past life in photography and the best way to do that is research.
In 1906 Weston wanted to pursue a career in photography but he realised that he was going to need professional training. Therefore he had to move to Effingham, Illinois where he trained in photography. Weston didn't complete the course so he didn't get a diploma so he moved back to California in 19908. In 1911 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won’t matter where I live." [1] Here he made portraits of children and friends, he always wanted to get the perfect picture otherwise he wasn't happy. At an interview he said "photographic plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me." [2]
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I enjoy the images that Weston take because you have no idea what you're looking at, you have to stand and think and take a guess. However not knowing what you're looking at means you will look at the other aspects in the image. For example you will see the formals elements, how the shapes and the lines form the image. Weston look a lot of images of fruit and veg as you will never find something that is identical to another. This means that the lines will always be different in the images, even if its of 100 different onions, none of them will be the same. making them all an individual. I like the way in which he takes the images, he makes sure they are either at an angel where you cannot see what the image is, or he zooms in enough so you can only see the elements of the object. His work reminds me of Albert Renger-Patzsch and his work 'The World is Beautiful'. This is because his objective when taking these images was to create a series of images that show the shape of the object, which is what Weston has done.